


Vincent Valentine's Halfway Home for ShinRa Science Projects (And Underage Assets)

by evilicious



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilicious/pseuds/evilicious
Summary: This is the story of how one man stuffed with demons finds himself raising a household of misfit children with superhuman abilities. After all, why take in justonetroubled child when you can take inallof them?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

It started with Cloud.

Well, _technically,_ Sephiroth was the first he took in, but he couldn’t _not_ be the caretaker of Lucrecia’s son, not after rescuing him from Hojo’s clutches and the labs—the boy was already too physically strong to be left in the care of anyone with less than Vincent’s enhancements, and the likelihood of his violent upbringing causing the child to unintentionally harm someone was high. _Leaving_ Sephiroth in someone else’s hands was out of the question, especially so when, sans Hojo, who didn’t have a familial bone in his body, Vincent was the closest thing Sephiroth had to real family.

And, _t_ _echnically,_ Genesis was the second kid Vincent Valentine legally adopted, but how could he leave a child kicking his legs in the courthouse lobby while his parents screamed at ShinRa lawyers just a few doors down the hall, demanding the company either take their ward back or properly compensate them for looking after a ‘freak’? He couldn’t, especially not after Sephiroth’s eyes lit up in wonder as Genesis easily broke through the other boy’s social ineptitude in the way only a chatty seven(and-three-quarters)-year-old could manage. Vincent was already at the courthouse and Veld was already pulling strings left and right to get Sephiroth into his custody; tugging on a couple more wouldn’t be a problem, so _not_ adopting Genesis hadn’t been an option.

Angeal came next and, unlike with Sephiroth and Genesis, Angeal didn’t _technically_ count as one of _his_ kids because, despite being Angeal Hewley’s emergency contact and regular, full-time babysitter, Gillen Hewley was still alive, kicking and doting on her baby boy, so Vincent Valentine hadn’t needed to step in and become his primary caretaker. After learning that Genesis would be relocated to Nibleheim, Gillen packed her things and her son and moved to the other side of the planet to be near him. She was too personally invested in Genesis’s well-being to not be involved in his upbringing, and Vincent respected that. He offered to watch Angeal during the day while his mother was working, which made watching Angeal more of a part-time gig and not a full commitment.

Two years later, Vincent got a phone call from Veld, which led to a short family road trip to Midgar, a subsequent ‘scavenger hunt’ gathering intel from different informants to ensure maximum secrecy, and ending their journey in a run-down motel outside of Sector Seven that was completely off ShinRa’s radar. That’s where Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal were first introduced to Rosso, Weiss and Nero, while Veld got Vincent acquainted with a very large stack of documents and the idea of looking after three more children. There was no way in hell he could leave Nero to someone else, not when the boy’s powers stemmed from his own; Nero and Weiss were a package deal, so he couldn’t leave one without the other, and a quick glance at her birth certificate revealed Rosso was related to Genesis in a way Vincent didn’t even want to _think_ about, meaning she, legally, was already his charge. This, if one was keeping count (which Vincent totally _wasn’t_ ), _technically_ had the ex-Turk up to child number _six,_ but, again, he didn’t have a choice and the matter was completely out of his control.

After that came Aerith. Technically speaking, Aerith wasn’t even his kid. She was the last Cetra on the run from the ShinRa labs; moving her to Vincent’s place was simply the easiest, most practical solution to keeping her out of the hands the science department without exhausting valuable Turk resources watching over her in Midgar. He hadn’t _chosen_ to watch her; it was a _necessity_.

By the time Sephiroth finds a four-year-old Cloud, bruised and dirty, sleeping right outside the mansion’s gates, Vincent is so used to taking in small and battered children that he doesn’t stop to consider that the kid might already have a home.

Cloud’s a little _different_ from the others in Vincent’s care, in that he’s perfectly normal. He immediately imprints on Sephiroth and follows him around like a baby chocobo, and Sephiroth, despite their six-year-age gap, seems equally fascinated in the younger boy. Which is rare. Sephiroth doesn’t take to strangers, not without ample time warming up; usually, he spend at least an hour carefully observing people before he’s comfortable interacting with them at all (Genesis is the sole exception, but it’s impossible _not_ to engage Genesis when he’s chatting your ear off) but, with Cloud, something just _clicks,_ and the two of them become instantly inseparable.

Vincent Valentine is a trained Turk. He is immune to most attempts at manipulation, but, _dammit,_ Cloud is adorable. Granted, all the kids are precious in their own unorthodox ways, but Cloud is just straight-up, dictionary-definition cute. He’s small, with fluffy blonde hair and enough baby fat to make his face constantly pouty. His big blue eyes seem to take up a disproportionate amount of his face, but it _works._ It works a little _too_ well and Vincent can’t find it in himself to deny the boy a place in his home.

Watching a boy for ten hours every weekday isn’t the same as adopting a child, nor is housing a girl to protect her, and Vincent hadn’t really had a choice with either Sephiroth or Genesis, and certainly not in the three-child Rosso-Weiss-NEro compounded instance, so none of them counted, leaving Cloud as the first kid he legally adopted out of the goodness in his heart.

Less than twenty-four-hours later, he’s already contacted Veld, and Veld’s in the process of contacting his lawyer to finalize the process when there’s a loud knock at the door. One loud knock turns into two, and two turn into many more.

Even with his enhanced hearing, it takes Vincent a moment to identify the door as the source of the noise; running a household with seven-going-on-eight children under the age of twelve is loud enough without putting their various _quirks_ into consideration. He’s preparing dinner in the kitchen with Angeal, a good half-a-manor away from the front entrance, so it’s natural that the sound slips past him. _Officially_ , the ShinRa manor in Nibleheim is unoccupied so there shouldn’t _be_ anyone knocking at the door in the first place. It’s only when the knocking persists that he realizes that there’s somebody at the door. At first, Vincent ignores it, because that’s his default response to dealing with things he isn’t prepared to handle, and the lasagna will be ready any minute, and Angeal’s still a little too short to reach into the oven without burning himself.

When the knocking starts getting louder and more frantic, he shouts for Genesis to do something about it. Genesis and Angeal are the only two old enough, socially capable enough, and discrete enough to be trusted interacting with strangers unsupervised, and Angeal’s currently elbows-deep in the kitchen sink. The oven beeps. Without bothering with mitts, Vincent grabs the deep dish and sets it on a trivet to cool. He listens for scampering feet and mentally maps Genesis’s footsteps as he scurries around the old house.

_Down the stairs…._

_Past the living room…_

_Into the foyer…_

_Past the living room again…_

_Down the hall…_

Finally, the footsteps draw nearer until Genesis is standing in the doorway and there’s a near-hysterical blonde woman in Vincent’s kitchen asking if he’s seen a child that, by her description, sounds remarkably like the one currently coloring with Aerith under Sephiroth’s watchful eye.

The child that Vincent also, coincidentally enough, legally obtained guardianship over.

That could pose… problematic.


	2. Chapter 2

According to Betty Selwine, who heard it from Margo’s mother, who worked with Tim’s brother who swore up and down it was the truth, a vampire lived in the old Shinra manor. Sometimes, in the middle of the night (and late afternoon, if it was dark enough), the sound of children screaming came from the abandoned house. Never adults, though. Nibleheim’s resident vampire, as the rumors went, was one with refined _tastes_ that the usual virgin women were unable to satiate. He drank only the blood of those purest of mind and body, and, to a creature of the night, nothing tasted sweeter than an innocent child.

Now, Skye Strife considered herself a reasonable, straightforward woman. She wasn’t the smartest or most educated by any means, nor would she claim to be. However, she _had_ been up and down the bend a couple times, traveled and saw a place or two, read a few books, and knew better than to believe local legends. Heck, according to the rumor mill, for a while, she could speak to wolves and the Mako reactor at the top of the mountain housed aliens. Aliens, she wouldn’t be too surprised by. But vampires? Absolutely ridiculous. The Shinra mansion had been abandoned for years, and there was no way a _vampire_ would decide to settle down in a no-name backwater mountain town a good day’s trek away from _anything._

Skye Strife firmly believed that all the vampire talk was complete hogwash.

And then her son went missing, and she started having doubts.

Knocking on the manor’s front door had been a last resort, borne mostly out of frustration. She’d banged on nearly every other door in town, and, rather than be helpful, half the folk she spoke to told her it was too late.

_“Oh, that poor boy. That vampire must’ve gotten to him.”_

_“Best pray there’s enough o’ yer boy’s soul to pass after the vampire’s had his fill.”_

_“You let him out of your sight? There’s a vampire on the loose!”_

There was light shining through the windows. It was warm and inviting, in stark comparison to the cold, impersonal surrounding mountains. Perhaps the house wasn’t as empty as she’d initially thought. However, that didn’t mean there was a _vampire_ living there. Ms. Strife prayed whoever it was was far enough removed from the superstitious nonsense plaguing the rest of Nibleheim to help her.

When she started knocking, she hadn't expected to be banging her fists against wood for twenty minutes straght, nor had she expected, once the damn door finally opened, to be greeted by a redheaded preteen in a black long coat, crimson vest and knee-high, swash-buckler boots, reminiscent of historically inaccurate portrayals of Victorian pirates.

_Or vampires_ , her brain unhelpfully offered. Ms. Strife tactfully ignored her brain.

_“A visitor from afar, burdened with perspective. The shroud of solitude, lifted; the pool of ignorance, drained._ Welcome to our humble abode, Lady—” he paused.

“Strife.”

“Lady Strife,” the boy ushered her into the house with a flamboyant bow. “Apologies for the delay. It isn’t often we are blessed with visitors. _What a gift, the present of presence!_ Come along. The master would see you now.”

Master? That wasn’t a vampire thing, was it?

It wasn’t, she assured herself. _Is_ n’t, because vampires aren’t real and, most certainly, not in Nibleheim .

This was a perfectly normal, albeit old and ritzy, mansion. Big houses like this required a lot of upkeep, so it made sense for the residents to have housekeepers to maintain the place. Sure, her guide looked like a child, but he could possibly be older than he looked. He was probably a butler or a groundskeeper of some sort.

As she followed the young servant through the house, that strange sixth sense that she was being _watched_ had Ms. Strife on high alert. She could hear whispers, and what sounded like children giggling. They passed a staircase, and Ms. Strife _swore_ she saw a black-haired toddler peering down at her from between the rails. When she tried to make eye contact, it the small person was swallowed up by the shadows, like he was never there to begin with. Maybe he hadn’t been. She was probably seeing things. It had been a very hellish two days, after all; if the lack of sleep wasn’t getting to her, the stress was.

It didn’t help that the redhead kept pausing to enthusiastically explain the history of paintings and random objects in the home as they passed.

“Note the two different eye colors in this painting. That’s Elenor Brunswhick, the master’s estranged second-cousin, who lost one of her eyes in a more acrobatic romp that ended disastrously. No one knows for sure which is the real one and which is glass.”

Pointing to seemingly boring rug, he wove a tale of two knights searching for a silk spider in the wilderness that Ms. Strife couldn’t bring herself to pay attention to. All she could think about was her little Stormcloud. At least he was properly bundled up. She made sure he was wearing two scarfs when he left the day before. Hopefully, that would be enough to help he survive the night.

_“Woe, a tragedy! A fight fought, all for naught—_ This lamp is the master’s favorite. It belonged to a rich nobleman who battled valiantly for the hand of his brother’s mistress only for the mistress in question to use the commotion to elope with the handmaiden. The noble, upon beheading his own brother for a woman who felt nothing for him, used this lamp to gut himself," the boy nodded at the lamp appreciatively. "It's been in the master's personal collection for almost two hundred years."

“Lovely,” the woman murmured. There was no way her son would have wandered into this creepy old house, right? Cloud was four, but Ms. Strife liked to think she hammered the whole stranger-danger thing into his head pretty hard. He wouldn’t have entered someone’s house without her, or so she hoped.

The kitchen, once they finally reached it, looked normal enough. It was very industrial and almost too modern in comparison with the rest of the house, but it was a kitchen. Ms. Strife liked kitchens. They were familiar and comforting. Kitchens had sinks, and refrigerators, and pantries, and most certainly did _not_ have portraits of someone’s ex-sister-in-law who died tragically.

“Genesis?” A voice, an _adult’s_ voice, broke her thoughts and Ms. Strife jumped.

There was a man towering over her. She didn’t know where he came from, or _how_ he came to be inches away, but, within a split second of sharing a space with this person, she _knows._

His eyes are blood red, his mouth bares fangs, his inky black hair looks like it hasn’t seen conditioner in the better part of a century, and Skye Strife knows, with absolute certainty, that he is a vampire.

To survive in NIbleheim, a keen fight-or-flight response is mandatory. Skye Strife wasn’t one to back down. She never had been. It came with the name ‘Strife,’ she supposed. Against all better judgement, her instincts kicked in.

She should have run as fast as her legs could carry her.

Instead, Cloud Strife’s mother looks the creature of the night in the eye, grabs him by the shoulders, and knees him in the groin.

_“Where_ is my _son?”_

* * *

Getting hit in the crotch doesn’t hurt.

It should. He should be in incredible amounts of pain right now, but he isn’t. That would probably be more concerning, had Vincent not tasked most of his brain with trying to figure out what was happening. He could fight back, but he doesn’t. Being attacked had its benefits; he’d allow her to think she had the upper hand, while he was being granted a second to think.

This woman, clearly, was Cloud’s mother.

Based on the fact she immediately went for his manhood, he could safely come to two conclusions.

Conclusion #1: She perceived him as a threat.

Conclusion #2: Cloud’s mother did not take kindly to threats.

She knees him several more times. Behind the woman’s shoulder, he spots Genesis, mouth agape, looking something between horrified and amused. His eyes are wide with silent glee. Angeal is far quicker on the uptake. He drops the pan he’s washing with a _clang_ and has his body between the two adults in seconds.

For a twelve-year-old, Angeal’s large, but he’s still a few inches shorter than the woman. However, he’s already begun developing muscle and visibly outweighs her. Between the added bulk and his modified strength, the preteen easily separates her arms from Vincent’s neck. Cloud’s mother falls to a heap on the ground.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” Angeal kneels down and delicately taps on her shoulder.

The woman, mentally processing the actions her body just took, _completely_ breaks down.

Not crying.

_Laughing._

There are some tears thrown in the mix, but it’s mostly stress-borne manic laughter. She sounds insane. She _looks_ insane, wearing the same dress she’s been wearing for two days, sprawled out on a clean tile floor. In that moment, the woman just doesn’t care.

Angeal looks more concerned than before. Genesis simply stares at their guest in awe, mouth fumbling around in silent prayer, like he’s stumbled upon the holy grail. Nero wanders in during the commotion, and Vincent’s arms are full of toddler.

“’s she okay?” The three-year-old whispers from beneath his cape. Vincent merely grunts.

The laughter finally dies down enough for Cloud’s mother to form coherent sentences.

“I am _so_ sorry! I—I don’t normally kick people I just met—My son is missing-- and” she jumps up, suddenly remembering that she kneed a man in the groin, looks Vincent over in concern. “By Gaia, are you alright?”

He nods, squirming minutely under her intense gaze.

“I’m sorry to barge into your house like this--Have you seen my Cloud? He’s this—” she held gestured to just above knee-level “-tall, has spikey blonde hair, blue eyes—"

“Cloud!” Nero chirps up, like he does whenever they play I Spy. The woman blinks, seemingly just noticing the child hidden within the depths of Vincent’s cloak.

While Vincent’s mentally gauging how to delicately approach the topic of him adopting Cloud with Cloud’s visibly frazzled mother who, from the looks of it, had _not_ abandoned him after all, Genesis stops snickering.

“He’s wherever Sephiroth is,” he offers unhelpfully.

The woman, looking somewhat less frantic, blinks down at the boy. “Who—”

It’s then that Vincent Valentine finds his voice. “They’re in the den. Come. Genesis, Angeal, set the table.”

_“That which is asked of me, shall be—”_

“Just get the forks, Gen,” Angeal interrupted.

* * *

Upon finding their missing kid in a “abandoned” house with a strange man, many might throw the words “kidnapper” or “creep” or “pedophile” around. Cloud’s mother—Ms. Skye Strife, as she introduces herself after being reunited with her son- is, thankfully, not one of those people. In fact, she doesn’t even give him a second glance.

She grabs Cloud like a lifeline, and _squeezes_ , holding him tight and hard, in a modified chokehold that has Vincent almost feeling bad for the kid. Sephiroth looks confused and ready to intervene, and probably _would_ have _,_ if it weren’t for the smile threatening to split Cloud’s face.

(Vincent makes a mental note to hug Sephiroth more often.)

“Oh, Stormcloud, do _not run off_ like that! You could have gotten seriously hurt!” Ms. Strife sounds more relived than angry, something Vincent is silently grateful for, because the last thing he wants to deal with is an angered woman, especially not in this particular room. Cloud returns the embrace for a moment before squirming in his mother’s grip.

“’m fine, Ma.”

The woman smiles and ruffles his hair. “I can see that. It looks like you made some new friends.”

“Uh-huh,” The little blond practically bounces in excitement. “Seffroth!” Cloud presents the older boy to his mother, like a gift or offering, and the ten-year-old murmurs an uncomfortable ‘hello.’

Bubbly as ever, Aerith jumps into the conversation. “I’m Aerith! I’m Cloud’s friend, too!”

Cloud nods seriously. “Yes. Aeriff, ‘Geal, and Gensis, Nero and White and Rosso, too.”

From the time-out chair in the corner, Rosso scoffs. “No, I’m not! You aren’t _my_ friend!”

If Vincent were the type to draw attention to himself, he would clear his throat. He isn’t, though, so he simply speaks up. “Ms. Strife, will you and Cloud be staying for dinner?”

Over an armful of plastic cups, Angeal looks Genesis up and down, fully taking in the other boy’s outfit. He sighs.

_“_ You convinced her this was a haunted mansion, didn’t you?”

_After a dinner of warm, comforting, cheesy lasagna, Vincent Valentine completely forgets to inform Ms. Strife that she no longer has any legal claim over Cloud, and she and her son go home._


End file.
